Women's Studies

October 13, 2010

The Atlantic offers a short, interesting piece in their new issue on Gaza's surfer girls. The girls surf fully-clothed and will have to quit when they turn seventeen. One asks reporter Sarah A. Topol, "When you surf in America, do people stare at you?" This piece is just a vignette, and if it leaves you wanting to learn more about girls' and women's surfing around the world, you should check out Krista Comer's new book Surfer Girls in the New World Order. In the book Comer offers stories from Mexico, Indonesia, and Australia, as well the U.S. as she explores surfing as a local and global subculture, looking at how the culture of surfing has affected and been affected by girls, from baby boomers to members of Generation Y. To win a leftover advance review copy of the book, leave a comment here, or over at our Facebook page.

September 20, 2010

Varietyreports today that ABC has greenlighted a new series to revolve around the pilots and stewardesses of 1960s Pan Am. Reporter Michael Schneider writes that the show will focus on "what it meant to be a flight attendant in the go-go days of flight travel." We wonder if it will reveal the ugly sexism and racial stereotyping behind the glamour. In her book Femininity in Flight, Kathleen Barry revealed the many indignities that women working in the airline industry had to endure in the 1950s and 60s: weigh-ins, forced retirements upon marriage, skimpy uniforms and sexual abuse by passengers. She details the important role of unions in changing most of these policies and turning the sexy stewardess into the safety-conscious flight attendant. In her forthcoming book Airborne Dreams, Christine R. Yano tells another Pan Am story, that of second-generation Japanese-American women ("Nisei") recruited to staff Pan Am's Asia routes. They were ostensibly hired for their language skills, but since many of them hardly spoke any Japanese, their more important role was to bring an "exotic" appeal to the routes and play into stereotypes about Asian women. They endured all the same indignities of other flight attendants; one woman Yano interviewed remembered the pilot-conducted girdle checks. Now there's something that should be featured on the new show!

August 02, 2010

Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, border cities in Mexico, used to be places Americans could slip over to for some cheap tequila, some gambling, perhaps even a taste of illicit sex. There was always a hint of danger to the visit, the Sunday New York Times reports, quoting a 1930 article about the Mexican resort of Agua Caliente: "The spice of danger adds a zest to the pleasure of thousands who visit them from this side of the frontier." Paul Vanderwood writes about Agua Caliente in his book Satan's Playground, which chronicles the rise and fall of the glitzy casinos, cabarets, and horse racing tracks that grew up on the Mexican side of the border during Prohibition. There was plenty of crime associated with the resorts, Vanderwood writes. In particular, he describes a bank heist gone wrong and the sensational trial that followed it. But, as the Times reports, the danger in the border towns today is far more sinister. Reporter Marc Lacey writes, "The naughtiness that used to give
the border its flair seems innocent
now. The prostitutes, hustlers and con men who once had free rein are,
like everyone else, scared out of their wits." Drug and human traffickers have taken over, and tacky and illicit business that used to cater to American tourists are all boarded up. It's dangerous to be an American in the border towns but it's especially dangerous to be a Mexican woman, argue the contributors to Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the Americas. More than 600 women and girls have been murdered and more than 1,000 disappeared in the Mexican state of Chihuahua since 1993. The book, edited by Rosa-Linda Fregoso and Cythina Bejarano, argues that the violence in Mexico goes far beyond the drug trade. It is structural violence rooted in social, political, economic, and cultural inequalities.

July 15, 2010

This terrific LA Weekly article asks, why are we "sold books the same way we are sold cell phones, as if the latest models
deserve the most attention"? Reviews, interviews, publicity hype is all reserved only for the lastest books. And says, Nathan Ihara, "the book they are hyping probably is not the book you ought to read, not
even the book you would most enjoy reading. That book lies
hidden in the back of the bookstore, or perhaps not even there. It is
10-, 20-, 35-years-old." At Duke Press, our backlist supports us. We always hope each new book is one that will still be selling in a decade. In praise of our backlist, might we suggest three older titles that are currently on our in-house bestsellers list? First is Carla Freeman's High Tech and High Heels: Women, Work, and Pink-Collar Identities in the Caribbean(1999). This ethnography of women working in the informatics industry in Barbados
is a perennial bestseller for us, used in courses all around the country. Our editors often cite it to new authors as a way to write important scholarship that is also engaging to students. Another book currently selling well is The Cuba Reader (2003). Our Latin America and World Readers series offer the student or traveler a way to get an overview of a country's history, politics, and culture through primary documents like songs, paintings, photographs, poems, short stories, speeches, cartoons, government reports, and reportage. All the titles in the two series are
steady backlist seller for us. The third backlist title we offer you today is Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensationby Brian Massumi (2002). Massumi's book was an early title in a the now burgeoning field of affect studies and is a good example of how many of our bestselling books will never see a non-academic review or spend much time on a Barnes and Noble shelf. Instead we are known for cutting-edge theory that may be difficult, but that academics in many fields need to confront. Take some time to browse our other backlist on our website. Unlike a cell phone, a truly excellent book will not become obsolete in just a year or two.

June 29, 2010

For your listening pleasure, check out these three Duke authors on various radio shows. First up, Randy Weston on NPR's Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland. Weston plays several pieces on the show, including a tribute to Thelonious Monk. McPartland plays her own tribute to Weston. Weston's autobiography, African Rhythms, is out in October. Then you can listen to an Frank Wilderson discuss his new book Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of U.S. Antagonisms on KDVS's New Day Jazz. Wilderson's book is a provocative theoretical critique of representations of race in socially engaged films made since the 1960s. Then tonight tune into KPFT's Nuestra Palabra at 7:30 CT to hear AnaLouise Keating talk about the late great feminist activist and writer Gloria Anzaldúa. Keating is the editor of The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader. Enjoy all these great interviews!

May 03, 2010

May 2010 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the FDA's approval of the birth control pill. Time Magazine did a long story on the development of the pill and its integration into American society. But they left out a fascinating and mostly unknown part of the story. In the 1940s chemists discovered that barbasco, a wild yam indigenous to Mexico, could be used to mass-produce synthetic steroid hormones. The development of the Pill led to increased demand for the yams, and to thus to increased opportunities for the Mexican farmers who cultivated and harvested them. In her new book Jungle Laboratories: Mexican Peasants, National Projects, and the Making of the Pill, Gabriela Soto Laveaga reconstructs the story of how rural yam pickers, international pharmaceutical companies, and the Mexican state collaborated and collided over the barbasco. By so doing, she sheds important light on a crucial period in Mexican history and challenges us to reconsider who can produce science. In a review of the book on Feminist Review this weekend, Maya N. Vaughan-Smith says Jungle Laboratories is "an engaging read for women who are curious about the political economy of
the pills they are popping on a daily basis."

March 24, 2010

In the news, we read about flights all over Europe delayed by striking British Airways
flight attendants, but in popular culture, people seem to long for the old days. We all know not to call them "stewardesses" anymore, right? Apparently not, according to a new reality show on the CW network called Fly Girls. The show follows five Virgin Atlantic flight attendants who share a "crash pad" in Los Angeles. In one scene they roll their eyes at who call them "air hostesses," but reviewer Hank Steuver believes overall the show reinforces old stereotypes of "airheads" in the air. The New York Times Magazine focuses on fashion rather than hard work and safety, with a slide show of Delta uniforms over the last sixty year. For insight into the history of flight attendants, check out Kathleen Barry's Femininity in Flight. Barry traces the evolution of their glamorized image as ideal women and their activism as trade unionists and feminists, helping us to understand both the struggle of the British Airways crews, and our own nostalgia for the bygone era of beautiful young women in chic dresses.

November 30, 2009

Check out our new YouTube video! Brenda R. Weber, author of Makeover TV: Selfhood, Citizenship, and Celebrity (2009), answers questions about her new book, the makeover tv genre, and the influence the concept of makeovers has on popular culture and thinking.